Meal Planning...May

Bump meal planning Monday, I'm ready to blow it out of the water this month with meal planning May! Yes, I'm taking back the kitchen-and my grocery budget. Let's see how far we get in before Taco Bell intervenes. I've never done anything like this before, but I'm tired of busting the budget- and honestly I'm a glutton for punishment. If I'm halfway successful, I hope this post will serve as a good bookmark for future meal planning purposes as I've laid out most of family favorites.

*It should be noted that...

• I took a good look at our calendar before planning to avoid getting too sidetracked. So in case you're wondering why the week starts on a Thursday, I let the calendar be my guide. I'm open to better suggestions!
• I'm giving myself $50 for "sidetracked"...because I'm a realist.
• I set a budget of $350 for the month-that's four weeks for a family of four.
• I don't usually include weekends in my regular planning, hence the sprinkling of frozen dinners.
• As you can see, I reserved (on avg) one day each week for eating out. Listed below are just the dinner plans...who knows what we'll have for lunch. Leftovers, smoothies, salami and crackers, and tons of chicken nuggets is my guess.

and....

I'm planning to fail, so no pressure in this kitchen!

Week 1
(Th May 1) Macaroni-a family favorite
(F May 2) Evan's birthday party with friends-TBD
(S May 3) Grandma's in town, we're eating out!
(S May 4) Tomato soup and grill cheese sandwiches
(M May 5) BBQ chicken pizza (Baseball game)
(T May 6) Oven baked chicken, asparagus and red potatoes
(W May 7) Breakfast for dinner-pancakes, sausage and fruit

Week 2
(Th 8) Grilled chicken and roasted veggies(mixed bag from farmers market)
(F 9) Spaghetti (baseball)
(S 10) Soft tacos and Spanish rice
(S 11) Eat out in Raleigh for Mother's Day
(M 12) Spinach stuffed manicotti with garlic bread
(T 13) Kids eat free night at Moes Southwest!
(W 14) Salad with roasted veggies a la farmers market(church)

Week 3
(Th 15) Wil Med hospice event-dinner provided
(F 16) Eat out-burgers and (baseball)
(S 17) Chicken Parmesan 
(S 18) Minestrone soup (church)
(M 19) Steak, corn and broccoli
(T 20) BBQ chicken quesadillas
(W 21) Frozen pizza (baseball)

Week 4
(Th 22)Mom's night out-Olive Garden
(F 23) Chicken poppy seed casserole
(S 24) Baked ziti
(S 25) Breakfast for dinner- hashbrown casserole
(M 26) Vegetable stir fry
(T 27) Chicken tettrazini
(W 28) Cheese quesadillas

(Th 29) Burgers and (baseball)
(F 30) Lasagna a la Stoffers
(S 31) Arroz con pollo

Keep me accountable folks, how I would love to post a success story come June! 
PS-This took me an hour and a half. #worthit #Ihopeso

Meal Plan Monday!

Saturday-Lasagna and salad
Sunday-Cinco de Mayo fellowship dinner with church care group, Mexican style!
Monday-An unusually early 5:30 teeball game=dinner on the fly.
Tuesday-Chicken noodle soup, it's gonna be a rainy day after all.
Wednesday-Burgers on the grill, farmers market fruit/veggie of choice for sides
Thursday-Spinach tortellini...this is becoming a Trader Joe's staple
Friday-Breakfast for dinner, blueberry pancakes with oven baked bacon

You'll notice two new additions to this week-Saturday and Sunday. I rarely if ever plan weekend meals, but am trying to start. We do usually have one built in "go out" night during the week, but often veer off course on the weekends. Our grocery budget may squeeze into a new belt hole, but I know it's much cheaper than eating out and will save money overall. Unless you're talking Little Caesars that is....we are SO doing pizza for lunch this week!

Meal Plan Monday

I took a break from the meal plan last week but I'm pleased to say we did pretty good. Once I get this down, my next goal is to be better about planning more lunches at home. We're not leftover snobs, but I'm so used to halfing recipes for our family size that we rarely have leftovers anyways. However, I sense with these growing boys that times are a changing. On another note, I'm SO excited that farmers market and strawberry/blueberry season is just around the corner-we always seems to eat so much healthier in the Spring and Summer!

Monday-Caesar chicken pasta
Tuesday-Spaghetti
Wednesday-Grilled barbeque chicken and corn on the cob
Thursday-We'll be eating out on the go since we have a tee ball game that night
Friday-Cheese quesadillas with Spanish rice

It's pretty simple, but that's my plan and I'm stickin to it. Also on the menu this week-a little Spring cleaning, painting, baseball, some yardwork and Bennett's first time strawberry picking at Dean's Farm!

Monday Meal Plan

Monday-Breakfast for dinner
Tuesday-Spinach/ricotta stuffed manicotti w/ salad
Wednesday-Chris will be in Raleigh all day for a BB&T workshop, so the boys and I are on our own! (Read-chicken nuggets, mac n' cheese, apple slices oh my)
Thursday-Chicken tortilla soup a la "The Pioneer Woman"

Friday-Baked ziti and a veggie side (My little boys LOVE peas and broccoli and I don't take advantage of this nearly enough!)

Meal Plan Monday

It feels like just yesterday I wrote last week's "Meal Plan Monday" and here we are again! We did fairly well with our plan last week, and this blog is doing a great job at keeping me accountable.

On the menu in the Scott kitchen this week...
I'm throwing the Minestrone into the rotation again this week since I ended up bringing ours to another family last week, and because it was it made my house smell divine. Thanks for your recipe Lori! :-)

Monday-Hamburgers and homemade fries
Tuesday-Mexican chicken and rice
Wednesday-Vegetable minestrone soup
Thursday-Pizza puffs and a veggie side(Rachael Ray's recipe here)
Friday- Early dinner out...Chic-fil-a?

Also on the menu this week, I'm going to try a few freezer snacks and breakfasts from Su Soutter's "Intentional Home" blog.  These chocolate chip pumpkin muffins look delish(and easy!), hopefully they'll taste as good as they sound. We will see, this one definitely falls under what my husband would term the somewhat questionable "wild card" category. Recipe here.

 For breakfast, I'm going to give her make ahead breakfast burritos a try. I'm awful about eating breakfast-truly. If these work out they have big potential in the house! Recipe here.

Happy cooking!

Meal Plan Mondays

Last week at MOPS we took a refresher course in the Dave Ramsey financial peace plan, and I was encouraged once again to be more diligent in my meal planning. As a mom, I sometimes feel like my whole day is about "planning." It's just how the cookie crumbles. So, I'm embracing it! Thankful me, I do love a plan.

This would be a good place to pause and remind myself of last week. Last week I did not plan well. Sure, we bought groceries. But somehow, my groceries just didn't "go" together the way I had imagined(or in my case, didn't imagine). Sort of like buying clothes without thinking of the complete "outfit," my food just did not "go" together to make cohesive meals. Result-a lot of eating out, and MUCH more money spent on the fly.  It was even worse than an "I forgot to thaw the chicken so we're ordering pizza" kind of week-even then I'd give myself credit for trying! So, before the weekend I took some extra time to think through my grocery list, and hope my  planning will result in fewer last minute trips to food lion. All of that to say, it's Meal Plan Monday!

Monday-Crockpot chicken and dumplin's (Recipe here)
Tuesday-Minestrone soup and honey cornbread
Wednesday-Taco salad with spanish rice
Thursday-Chicken poppy seed casserole
Friday-Spaghetti and veggies

I'm going trying my hand at a simple homemade artisan bread recipe this week to go alongside some of these meals, and if my boys are especially good will make some chocolate chip cookies for desserts as well. Who am I kidding, for snacks. :-)

Off to crock pot!

Meal Planning "Friday"

This is the plan, and I'm stickin' to it!

Monday-Chicken fettucine alfredo w/ sister shubert's rolls
Tuesday-Layered Mexican dinner and Spanish rice
Wednesday-Poppy seed chicken casserole with corn
Thursday-Good ole' faithful Macaroni
Friday-Chicken alfredo bake...because I am resolved not to throw away another "half" empty jar of sauce!

These days, meal planning and grocery shopping happen on Friday. I admit some weeks are more productive than others when it comes to planning out dinners, but this week I've found some fresh motivation...maybe it was that $10 off of $50 E-vic special from Harris Teeter!

Every week I eagerly look forward to perusing my favorite coupon match up site "Southern Savers," (which I have no doubt previewed on Wednesday when the stores start up the new deals for the week) and then gleefully collect my coupons. With coupons, grocery list, and arsenal of snacks in hand, me and my little are ready to go!

Today was especially exciting as I took home some great deals, and all for $31!!! Granted, we did make a separate trip the day before and spent $12 on the "buy 2 get 3" pepsi products promo-but all in all a great week for sticking to(and under!) our budget. Knock on wood.

And, because I have no new foodie pictures to present, here's one just as edible...

Butter is better

This past week, inspired by "Pioneer Woman" Ree Drummond's cookbook, I made several new dishes for dinner. I have to preface this with saying that everything she makes is very hearty-and makes for a happy hearted husband! Her recipes are rich with flavor and generous in ingredients(read-butter). Bless her for using so many step by step photos in her book-nothing speaks to this kitchen amateur's heart like lots of pictures!

First up I tried her lasagna recipe, and it was an A+ success! Move over Stoffers, there's a new sheriff in town! Not only did it taste great, but made enough for two dinners and a few lunches left over. Next I made her chicken pot pie, which was very tasty, and nothing like Betty Crocker's "quick & easy" version using Bisquick. Using real "from scratch" pie crusts really made the difference!

 (Picture taken pre-pie topping...let's just say it looked better before the big "flop" of pie crust)

Lastly on the dinner list, I made her chicken spaghetti, which was very similar to a chicken tetrazzini. Easy enough and two thumbs up on taste-it's a winner in this house!

I also made two of her breakfast recipes this week(adventurous right!)-buttermilk biscuits and cinnamon rolls. For some reason the biscuits were a total bust. I blame my bad luck in all things bread making. In fact, I may even throw out the frozen leftover dough because well, there's no saving those rolls. :-/  On the other hand, my labor of love cinnamon rolls were very sweet and tasty, and will serve us breakfast for weeks to come(her recipe makes a ton).

All in all, a good week of trying new things! You can only imagine the state of my kitchen this week...over and over again. Kitchens are meant to be messy if you ask me. It's a vicious cycle-cook, clean, cook, clean, cook, clean. But in the end, the warmth of a hearty chicken pot pie, the taste of rich lasagna and the sweet smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls make all the effort worth it.

A special thanks to my friend Jeanna for letting me know this treasure of a cookbook was at the library! :-)

PS-What's on the menu this week? Well, let's just say we're going out to eat tonight, and having frozen pizza tomorrow!

In the kitchen

My kitchenaid was given a work out this week with these new recipes! :-)

First, easy apple tart with homemade pie crust, courtesy of the next Food Network Star Melissa Darabian. Bookmark this one ladies! While practice makes perfect, I'm happy to say my first try didn't turn out half bad, and was greeted with great reviews. *Lesson learned-best served fresh out of the oven, warm and ooey gooey good. :-) Post picture, I made a whip cream topping with some cinnamon to garnish. Maybe next time around I'll tackle the crumble topping. Maybe...

Next-melt in your mouth, take that Quaker Oats, homemade granola bars. I'm so excited to eat these for breakfast this week, and feel like this is a must have mommy recipe. Because I needed to re-use the dish for Rice Crispy treats, I went ahead and cut the bars out and pre-packed into snack sized, ziplock bags. And voile, breakfast is served! *Lesson learned-adding a little extra honey and butter goes a long way in the texture(more chewy, less crumbly). Also, I substituted a 1/2 of rice crispies with the Oates and really enjoyed the result.

And last but not least, the cake boss' special recipe for Chocolate chip cookies-simple and delicious! In spite of his loud Italian heritage, I heart Buddy the cake boss, and was super excited to catch him on the Rachael Ray show last week. A little piece of "Carlos Bakery" in my own kitchen! This is a clean, classic, tried and true choco-chip cookie recipe, and makes enough to freeze for later(love love love it when that happens). *Lesson learned-who knew you could taste the difference between light and dark brown sugar? Okay, just me? Blush.... Also, if you've run out of baking soda-or vacuumed it all up as I did-you can substitute baking powder by using 3x the amount baking soda required.

I have to say that Yankee Candle can't touch the sweet smell of golden chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven, or fresh apple pie with a pinch of cinnamon swimming in the living room air. There's nothing like a warm stove, clean kitchenaid, pink measuring cups and a favored, flour crusted apron to make my afternoon!

Recipe sources:
Quick cinnamon apple tart
Homemade granola bars
Buddy's chocolate chip cookies

Adventures in baby food

Evan is a joy of an eater-not picky in the least can you imagine? At least, not yet! He seems to like almost everything we give to him, and even if he makes a face(ie-peas), he still gobbles down every last spoon full. Thank you Lord, for not giving this child my tastebuds!

Making my own baby food was something I really wanted to do for a long time. But let's face it-it's a lot of extra work! Plus, there are perfectly healthy, natural and nutritious baby food options of the jarred variety. That being said, while I'm still working we have adopted a blended diet of homemade and store bought food. It's been a fun adventure learning to make baby food, getting to know my vegetables as well as my food processor.  It's a little intimidating at first, but really very simple once you get the jist. I also discovered that while generally it's much more cost effective to make your own baby food, some things can be more expensive to make at home-like apples. And with all the extra labor, well, Earth's Best wins that war!

Evan's favorite food by far is sweet potatoes. Lucky for me, this is an easy one to buy and make at home, and with a wonderful Fall scent to boot! So far we've made sweet potatoes, butternut squash, pumpkin and carrots. I don't have a pro-steamer just yet, so as far as most of my prep goes I've mostly stuck to baking.The very first thing I made was a winter squash, and I was so excited I just had to document the process!

First, one butternut squash, found at Target on sale for .99c/pound. Hello Mr. Squash, you look mighty yummy today!

 Like most fruits and veggies that are headed to the oven, I didn't worry about skinning. I simply cut into four peices and faced meat side down in about an inch or two of water. Because this was a squash, and the squash belongs in the pumpkin family, I did need to scoop out the insides and seeds first.

Into the oven it went at 400 degrees for about 45 min-1hr until soft. Once they past the "fork test," I let them cool and scooped scooped the good stuff directly into the food processor with a pinch of water. Fire it up, pulse, pulse and baby food here we come!

I was surprised to see how much food one squash made, and was able to freeze a bunch for later. I had been  recycling the baby food jars to store it in but just recently bought an ice cube tray, which was doubly worth my one dollar and forty cents! In addition to being perfectly portioned, the ice tray is really nice to use because once you let the food sit and freeze over night, you can simply pop em' out the next morning into a big, marked zip lock bag.

And voile, dinner is served-with a side of trial error, a pinch of patience and small sprinkling of cinnamon! :-)

Harris Teeter Super Doubling Nov. 3-9th!

It's time to grab those coupons and go! In the circus of moving, I haven't yet had time to organize and hit up this sale, but am super excited to go grocery shopping this week(especially now that Harris Teeter is in my backyard!). If you hadn't noticed by now, I think it's safe to come out of the closet and say that I am a couponer! Call me frugal if you will, but I am so proud to cut coupons and make the best of our family's resources. Saving money and finding great deals on groceries takes time, organization, and prudent meal planning. The rewards? Priceless! Happy budget, healthy tummy...and, it's fun to boot. Call me a nerd, but I really look forward to cutting and organizing coupons from the Sunday newspaper. Life on the wild side...haha!

While the following is no secret by any stretch, come in close and listen to my two favorite couponing resources. Ready? First is the "Southern Savers" website and secondly, WRAL's "Smart Shopper" blog by Faye Prosser. If you can snatch a few extra minutes in the day, they would be very well spent taking a look at those sites!

Here are a few tips from Faye on this weeks Harris Teeter's super double coupons:

Store Policy Reminder: 
 *HT will Super Double coupons worth up to $1.98 face value. A $1.50 coupon will double to $3.00. A $1.00 coupon will double to $2.00. A $2.00 coupon will not double at all and will only be taken at face value ($2.00).

*HT will super double/double up to 20 coupons per day. Period. End of story. Spouse's cards registered with the same address are linked because the policy is 20 per household, per day.

* HT policy is to double up to 3 identical coupons (as long as you buy the product required for each coupon, of course). So, if you have five $1.00 coupons for a product, the policy is to only super double the first three.

* Rainchecks can be written for a limit of three unless otherwise stated in the ad. Make sure you get rainchecks for items out of stock and use the rainchecks at the next promotion since they don't expire!

*BOGO's pro-rated.

Be on the lookout for...

Dairy & Frozen:
Coffee-mate Original, 32 oz $2.85 - $1.50 printable = FREE

Buitoni Linguini and Angel Hair pasta on sale for $1.50 - $1 printable coupon = FREE

Country Crock margarine 15 oz tub BOGO through 11/9 - .40 printable

Dannon Activia yogurt, 4 pack $2.50 - $1 coupon from 10/10 (expires 11/7) = .50

Green Giant Frozen Boxed Veggies will be on sale $1 each - .60/3 coupon from 10/3 = .60 each

Nestle refrigerated ready to bake cookies on sale for $3 through 12/28 - $1 printable coupon = $1.00

Grocery
Mentos Gum $1.50 - $1 coupon from 10/3 = FREE

Bush’s grillin beans $1.99 - $1 coupon from 10/3 = FREE

Kikkoman soy sauce $2.00 - $1 printable = FREE (if sale continues)

Muellers pasta, 8 oz macaroni .79 - $1/2 printable = FREE

Martha White Muffin Mix BOGO for .57 each - .55/2 from 8/8 = .02 each

Chef Boyardee canned pasta $1 through 4/5 - .75/2 coupon from 10/3 = .25 each

Campbells condensed cooking soups $1.28 (.80 if sale continues) - $1.50/3 printable coupon = .28 each if not on sale, free if sale continues

Quaker Instant Oatmeal in boxes $3.39 through 12/28 - $1 coupon from 9/12 = $1.39


Non-Food:
Reach Floss $1.65 - $1 coupon from 5/16, 10/10 = FREE

Dial Basics soap, 3 pack .99 - .35 coupon from 10/10 = .29

Colgate Total $2.50 through 11/9 - $1 coupon from 10/31 = .50

Pert Plus $2.99 - $1 coupon from 10/17 = .99

Pampers/Huggies diapers pack $8.99 - $1.50 coupon = 5.99



Thank you for being so generous Harris Teeter!

Cookies, Crayon rolls and Couponing

Boy did I get some creative juices flowing this weekend! After going to the Creative Hearts craft fair at Open Door church, I was newly inspired to break out my dear, dusty sewing machine. I had the perfect project in mind for a sweet little girl's 6th birthday-a "crayon roll." :-) Both fun and functional-and not to mention outrageously adorable-the crayon roll was a great sewing project for me  and one I will definitely do again. Talk about an exercise in sewing straight lines! I used the instructions found here: http://www.skiptomylou.org/2007/04/25/on-a-roll/

The finished product:

On a side note, I can't say enough how much I love Joann Fabrics! I could spend forever getting lost in their colorful aisles, but since I had the baby and hubby in tow, we made it out without a major hit to the clock and check card, haha. Thank goodness Joann neighbors one of our favorite Raleigh restaurants-it's wonderful husband bait!

On Saturday I attended a Smart Shopper Couponing class courtesy of WRAL studios here in Raleigh, and let's just say my head is still spinning. The workshop was incredibly helpful and I'm SO excited to use these techniques in our household. Plus, the speaker was really entertaining and held my attention the entire time, never missing a quick witted beat and keeping my pen at a steady pace with oogles of budget saving tips and tricks. This is another post entirely, and I will hopefully get to posting it soon with the fruits of my clipping-watch out Lowes Food, I am armed, organized and ready to do some damage!

Unfortunately, my culinary endeavors were less successful(though I did find a super deal on flour). For the past two weeks I've been dreaming of beautiful fall sugar cookies. But not just any sugar cookies-I was exicted to explore the world of royal and glace icing to pair with my sweet treats. You know the kind-the kind of icing that's shiny and stays perfectly put on top of the cookie, that makes your cookie creations look like patterned peices of stain glass art and are stackable to boot. Sort of like this:

Well, let's just say that my first time around the block with this new recipe was, well, a disaster. If you've ever seen Nickelodeons "goo," you can imagine the messy splatter that painted my cookies, wax paper, spoons, bowel and counter tops. Neat it was not. Even the color was less than best...my pumpkin orange turned into sort of a melon/salmon color, which is to say it looked sort of pukey. :-/

Looking at my true trial and error of a batch, I knew without a doubt that these cookies would not be going to work with my husband the next day as planned haha! O well...at least design aside, the cookies did TASTE pretty amazing. And the learning experience really is a necessary one-after realizing my mistakes made, I'm almost positive I can make it much neater next time. Practice does make better, and I'm excited to whip out this recipe again with much more success come Christmas time.

As you can imagine, all of this craftyness is sure to leave a trail. I'm off now to vacum stray threads, wash cookie sheets and clean counters!

Meal Planning Review

So I hopped back on the meal planning wagon about 2 weeks ago, and I've gotta say I'm enjoying the ride! Sure, there have been bumps-a trip or two to Target for poorly planned mozzarella, and some list busters like ice cream shoppe poptarts(who could resist?)-but for the most part things are going swimmingly. :-) Here's what dinner looked like this week:

Saturday: Chicken & Cous Cous
Sunday: Taco Skillet
Monday: Homemade Pizza (It was AWESOME, and I froze half the dough for another time)
Tuesday: Chicken Teryaki a la Stouffers
Wednesday: Spaghetti & garlic bread (Made double on Tuesday for friends)
Thursday: Errands = eating out
Friday: Lori's Chicken Poppy Seed dish, rolls & farmer's market corn *Yes Lori, we named it after you!

Unfortunately, we busted the grocery budget for this past week-boo! But it's bound to happen on some weeks and things always balance out by months end. For example, this week our bill was much higher because we bought chicken and ground beef, plus diapers and dog food. Of course those things are part of life and list, but they don't happen every week. And because we got our main proteins last week, they spill over into this week's dinners and voile, that's $10 off our bill. So for the most part, I'm happy to say that were staying within our monthly, if not weekly budget, and cooking much more efficiently around here. Success!

A Picture Parade

We've been busy bees these days-here's a glimpse of what we've been up to... A trip to the Farmers Market would'nt be complete without a country ham biscuit from the famed Farmer's Market restaurant(for Chris that is!).

We went to see Chris' dad and Evan got to meet his other Grandpa for the first time-and seeing the great grands was icing on the cake. Four Generations.

Mommy's been cooking up a storm in the kitchen-making messes and meal planning in high gear.

And last but not least, Piper's been driving us cuh-razy! Sigh, but who could stay mad at a pup like this?

Meal Planning Palooza

I love the idea of meal planning. Not only does it save money, but it also cuts back on those countless "runs" to the grocery store for this and that during the week. When I take the time to prudently sit out and plan our weekly groceries, we are far less apt to go out to eat on a whim and are also able to keep those pesky impulse buys in check. Planning equals saving-I love it, and so does our budget!

Unfortunately, even the best laid plans are hit and miss at times.
I have a confession...
I have fallen off the meal planning wagon! For say, oh the last three months or so haha! Admittedly, my meal planning skills probably took a tumble towards the last trimester of my pregnancy, and I've been diving backwards ever since. Blush.

But now I am newly motivated and resolved once again to plan. This is me jumping onto that "meal planning Monday's" blog carnival and whipping my kitchen into shape. I get so many good ideas from other bloggers who do this. So here it goes, week 1 back in the meal planning saddle-wish me luck!

Dinners:
Saturday- Taco salad & Spanish rice
Sunday- Dinner out at Pei Wei
Monday- Chili w/ honey cornbread
Tuesday- Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo w/ broccoli
Wednesday-Hamburgers on the grill w/ fries
Thursday-Chicken Parmesan w/ Ceaser salad
Friday- Date night @ Shane's ribshack

Breakfasts:
Yogurts w/ granola
Bananas, Grapes
Lemon poppyseed muffins (will make in "mini" pan and separate into ziplock bags)
Oatmeal

Lunches:
Michaelina's frozen meals
Chicken noodle soup
Spaghettio Raviolios
Hot dogs w/ fruit side
Leftovers

Snacks & sidekicks:
Baby carrots
Apple slices w/ caramel
Cinnamon graham crackers
BBQ baked lays (My special item of the week)
"Take the Cake" ice cream (Chris' special pick)

Snickerdoodle-do

Hooray, my first kitchen-aid concoction was a success! I made Snickerdoodle cookies using this recipe, taken from the "Smitten Kitten" blog & Martha Stewart. They were wonderfully yummy bites of cinnamon deliciousness, and met with rave reviews from the hubby. :-) Tried & true, this sugary sweet cookie recipe is most definitely one for the books!

Kitchenaid come true

Welcome to my kitchen Miss Cornflower blue kitchenaid!

Since the day I said "I do," I've been dreaming of a kitchenaid stand mixer to crown my kitchen complete. At a steal of a deal, my patience paid off, and I can't imagine a better first mother's day gift. It's just beautiful and I can't wait to start using it for my family. Recipes anyone? I think our first spin will be homemade french bread, and I see mounds of buttercream in the future. :-)
Remember that deal I mentioned? Start with a super special, store specific Mothers Day sale, minus a Macy's gift card we've held onto since Christmas plus some change in store credit....and the grand total for my new 5 qt. Kitchenaid Artisan came to-drumroll please-$37.50!!!! I'm beside myself with disbelief at this amazing deal, and so thankful for my perfect Mother's Day mixer.

What's cookin'? Catching up in the Kitchen...

As I was going our camera card(and boy am I behind on printing pictures) I came across these new and old kitchen creations-and crumbles.

I'm especially happy with how these delicous puppies turned out-and even more so because they were super easy to make! Now if I could only figure out the perfect non-stick solution(aka so the brownies don't stick to the pan) then it would be even easier. I made these for our fun church Christmas party last night and they were gobbled up pretty fast, so this one is definitly a keeper for the cookbooks! If your wondering how simple they are to make, think brownies baked in a mini muffin mold, fudge topping optional, with strawberries on top(secured by sucker sticks a la Michaels) and voila!

Back in October I made these pumpkin cupcakes for our Halloween party at work. While they looked good in the end, I was'nt especially pleased with the too thick texture of the icing(my hands got quite the workout!) and the massive mess these left behind in my kitchen....oh the joys of buttercream!

Pictured below is a popular kitchen flop of mine-the unsucessful pan transfer...boy have we had our share of these days lately. Oh well, try try and try again! Eventually I got this right, but not without that extra measure of hard work and determination. Turns out baking is not only theraputic and fun, but also character building ;) Seriously though, any creative non-stick tips? And last but not least, I made these on a whim, just.because.

Now on to holiday cookies and gingerbread houses. Ha! Here's to high hoping :)

First place best taste!

Last night our church held its first ever dessert contest, and I won for “best taste!” Whooo hooooo! There were several amazing desserts there-from yummy cookie cakes, home spun apple pies and petite peanut butter cheesecakes-all of them looked like wonderful, mouthwatering works of art! My winning treat was a “Cookies N Cream” cake garnished with decadent white chocolate butter cream icing and delicious Oreo cookies. Chris also made our oatmeal cranberry white chocolate chunk cookies to bring and they turned out great too!

I was so happy that my dessert was a prized crowd pleaser, considering this cake and I had a rocky afternoon. The first time I tried transferring cake to plate, half of it stuck to the pan and no amount of plastic surgery could save it. And thus I took a breath, cleaned up my mess and headed back out to the grocery store to buy all new ingredients. Thank goodness for an extra measure of patience and persistence because I’m confident that the cake turned out much better the second time around(not to mention I very much enjoyed the second round of extra cake batter licking)! The next obstacle I faced was perfecting the white chocolate icing, which was another first. Who knew there was such a delicate balance to be met when heating chocolate-it feels like it’s never quite melted enough, and yet how could you miss the bold “do not overheat” instructions! The texture was a bit harder to work with once mixed in with the butter cream, but I was up for the challenge! In the end, the long and sweet afternoon was all worth it and the cake was mmmmmm mmmmmm good! I'm already looking forward to next years!

Treat of the week

Lemon Pound Cake-Simple and delicious!

Cake Ingredients:

1 Lemon cake mix

1 Lemon instant pudding mix

1/2 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

1 cup water

Glaze (aka the best part)

2 cups powdered sugar

1 tablespoons milk (or water)

Juice from one lemon (optional)

Heat oven to 350 degrees, follow baking directions on cake mix(for bunt pan bake 35-40 minutes), glaze and serve!